With one race in the rear-view mirror, local restaurateurs are hopeful that the upcoming Grand Prix brings a heftier boost to business than it did last year.

During last year’s inaugural race, restaurants lost business from regulars as well as tourists. Locals avoided the city for fear of traffic snarls. And when an estimated 100,000 visitors made it downtown, some restaurants were either unprepared or blocked by the race track.

“It was a little bit of a letdown because of all of the hype,“ said Bryson Keens, managing partner at Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine in Harbor East. “We did better during the hurricane weekend than we did during Grand Prix weekend.”

But restaurateurs said they learned from last year and are more confident they will see stronger sales during Labor Day weekend this time around.

“It’s obviously easier to do it the second time,” said Tom Noonan, CEO of Visit Baltimore. “They learned a lot about how to promote it.”

With a near-identical track layout, restaurants inside the course still stand to snag the most customers. But some outside the track’s footprint complained that their business took a dive — a phenomenon they’re hoping not to repeat.

“We didn’t suffer from lack of Grand Prix attendance, we suffered from the lack of our local customers,” Keens said. “If we had had our regular crowd on top of that, we probably would have been gang busters last year.”

Even M&S Grill in Harborplace, just on the other side of the fence surrounding the course, was disappointed in the number of customers it drew last year. M&S general manger Bryan King said the restaurant was no busier than a weekend when the Red Sox are in town, but he was hoping for a packed house.

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